Arachnophobia

So I think it’s not a good sign when the song going around and around in your head is Everything About You, by Ugly Kid Joe…..a little sample of the lyrics:

“I, get sick when I’m around, I, can’t stand to be around, I, hate every thing about you! Every thing about you, every thing about you, every thing about you! Some days I got a bad attitude, but that don’t change the way I feel about you….” (I didn’t change the punctuation, even though it is killing me to leave it this way. It looks terrible.)

Nope, not good at all.

UGH! *sigh* Grumble.

Okay, okay…enough of that. How about the story of our “tarantula”?

Really, it’s quite funny. Over the weekend we were in the car, all four of us, so Bug had to ride in the back seat…we are are merrily cruising through town when she all of a sudden she yells, “GIANT spider!” I, being the calm voice of reason, ask her if she’s sure it was a spider, and if she can still see it, because I’ll crawl over the seat to kill it so Bug doesn’t try to claw her way out of our moving car. (I feel the need to remind you this is a kid who screams and moves away from butterflies. And yes, I’m aware of the irony of the kiddo’s nickname.) Bug can’t see it, and she proceeds to try to convince herself it was just a giant fuzz, everyone calms down and we continue on our way. No other creepy-crawling sightings that day. The next day, we are heading to the grocery store, and Pally opens the back door to the car, and screams, “Spider!” Bug looks back into the back seat and starts to freak out. “Mom, that’s a tarantula!” Now, previous to this, I assumed if it really was a spider the first time it was just a large “average” sized spider. No big deal, right? So I hop out of the driver’s seat, and go around the car to get a look at this spider, and sure enough, it is the biggest, fastest Wolf Spider I have ever seen! Now, I’m okay squashing bugs, but this thing looked like it could eat small children if given the chance. The body of the darn thing was an inch long if it was a centimeter. All I could think is if this darn thing is like all the other wolf spiders I’ve ever met, he can JUMP! And if he jumps on me, my girls are going to watch me have a massive heart attack in my driveway. I also think if I smash it, I’m going to throw up…it was huge. So, I had one of the kids run back to the house for the bug spray, you know, that handy little can of Raid that’ll kill spiders, ants, and just about any other creep-crawly you might come across. Normal creepy-crawlies, you give ’em a little spray and they start to spasm and die. Not this dumb thing. I had to make a saucer sized puddle with the bug spray to even get it to stop running and it was a fast runner. It finally died, and I got the bright idea to scoop it up and put it in a jar so the Hubby could see it, because he’s never going to believe how big this spider was. You should have seen me trying to flip it into that old pickle jar making absolute sure it didn’t touch me. Then I asked Bug to carry it up on the porch. She didn’t want to, but it wasn’t as bad as the time Mom wanted me to carry the dead snake in a jar and I cried hysterically. Bug cringed a bit and held it gingerly by the lid, but she managed. I also had to apologize to her for getting onto her for screaming while we were driving the day before. I told her that had that humongo spider been on me I’d have screamed too, made the Hubby pull the car over and we’d have had to find that thing before I could have gotten back in. Now, at least once a day I wonder if that honking big spider laid eggs in my car….I haven’t mentioned this to either kid, because I’m pretty sure Bug couldn’t handle it. So, I’ll keep you posted on whether or not we get over taken by a bunch of itty-bitty baby spiders.